A vehicle is a manufactured machine configured of the great number of components. A configuration of the vehicle may be generally divided into two parts, a vehicle body which is an outer part of the vehicle, and a chassis in which various devices of the vehicle are organically connected. Further, recently, electronic units inside the vehicle performing various functions, as well as various devices configuring the chassis, form a network with each other. The components related to the network are about 30% or more of the components configuring the vehicle to occupy significant parts in the configuration of the vehicle.
The configuration of the network of the vehicle includes a sensor unit for detecting a vehicle state, a processing unit (node) for processing a sensor signal, a controller (actuator) for controlling a function of the vehicle, and a communication protocol for connecting the sensor unit, the processing unit, and the controller according to a purpose and transmitting data. The communication protocol used in a currently commercialized vehicle includes a CAN, a LIN, a MOST, and the like. Among them, CAN is an abbreviation of a “Controller Area Network”, and CAN communication technology is technology representatively and widely used among vehicle network protocols. The CAN communication technology is a wired communication method developed so as to respond to electronization of the vehicle and increase in a system, and secure reliability in a vehicle communication environment in which electric noise is much generated. The CAN communication technology was first developed for the vehicle, but, currently, has been widely used over a general industry. Recently, the number of various devices for convenience included in the vehicle for satisfying increasing demands of a user is increased according to development of a vehicle technology, and thus the number of wires connecting the various devices is rapidly increased. As the number of wires inside the vehicle is increased, various problems, such as decrease in fuel efficiency of the vehicle and increase in problem rates of various devices, are generated, and in order to solve the problems, research on replacement of an existing wired network to a wireless network has been actively conducted.
Particularly, a network of the vehicle itself using near field communication technology, such as WPAN and LAN may be connected with an existing CAN BUS by using a CAN interface to exchange information with another system. Power may be supplied to a gateway and each node configuring a wireless sensor network for the vehicle through connection with a battery of the vehicle or batteries of the gateway and the node. Accordingly, since the amount of power is limited in both methods, a power management function for making devices minimally use power is essentially demanded.